In response to Congressman Peter King’s hearings on Islamic radicalization, Muslim Brotherhood stooge Suhail Khan authored an article denouncing the hearings as a “witch hunt.” He was echoed by Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR who also branded the hearings a “witch hunt.”

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson caught on to this original idea, declaring the hearings, “Peter King’s Modern Day Witch Hunt.” Bob Herbert at the New York Times joined him in branding the hearings a “witch hunt.” At USA Today, an op-ed weighed in on “The Danger of a Muslim Witch Hunt.”

Democratic pols also got in on the act. Congressman Keith Ellison declared the hearings a “witch hunt” and Congresswoman Judy Chu complained that a “witch hunt for Muslim radicals will do little to make our nation safer.”

Wherever you turned, from CNN to Jon Stewart, the consensus of Muslim terrorists and their media collaborators was that investigating Islamism was just like hunting for witches. Except that terrorists exist and witches don’t—a minor fact that was lost on the progressive camp which often mistakes its own talking points for magic spells that alter the nature of reality.

The United States doesn’t hunt witches. It’s the Muslim world that has an unfortunate propensity for engaging in witch hunts.

While the progressive media complex was whipping itself into a frenzy denouncing any investigation of Saudi mosques and organizations as a witch hunt—the Saudis were conducting actual witch hunts. While Congressman King was trying to fight the War on Terror— they were declaring a War on Sorcery.

In Washington D.C. witch hunts might be a metaphor, but in Riyadh, they’re a top priority. While the Saudis operate a revolving door for Islamic terrorists, including the ones we send over to them for rehabilitation, they take important things like witchcraft seriously. A Saudi Al-Qaeda terrorist can expect to spend a little time at a plush rehabilitation facility before being set free to head off to the next conflict zone. But Saudi witches and sorcerers mercilessly have their heads chopped off in car parks.

A Saudi witch hunt is not a committee hearing; it is an actual unit of the Islamic religious police which is tasked with fighting witches and sorcerers, who according to the authorities, in the absence of the Jews, are responsible for most of the problems in the land. While American liberals insist that Islam is as modern as microprocessors and as moderate as vanilla ice cream, in the holy land of Islam, Sharia thugs are storming the dens of palm-readers, faith-healers and old women with too many cats around the premises in a 7th century witch hunt conducted with 21st century technology.

Muslim witch hunts aren’t only limited to Saudi Arabia. In Iran, Ahmadinejad’s allies have been accused of being sorcerers. In Pakistan, witch hunts end the old fashioned away, with a bonfire. One woman, accused of burning the Koran in a magical ritual, had her fingers cut off, her eyes poked out and gasoline poured all over her body. “She burnt the Koran, so we burnt her,” was the explanation.

In the Maldives, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed called for the passage of an Anti-Sorcery Act. The Maldives already has its own witch hunts and in 1993 arrested a witch for giving magic scrolls to a presidential candidate to help him win an election—a novel form of electoral fraud. It doesn’t however mandate the death penalty for witches, which is what the Sheikh is calling for, in line with Sharia law. “Sorcery has become a social plague in the Maldives which needs to be cured,” he said. And Islam has a reliable way of curing things by chopping their heads off.

Black magic is also a serious problem in the United Arab Emirates. In non-Muslim countries airport security personnel screen for Muslim terrorists carrying explosives and weapons; but in Muslim countries, the local equivalent of the TSA searches for magic wands and potions. Vigilant security personnel at Abu Dhabi International Airport caught one such would-be Harry Potter trying to enter the UAE.

“The airport staff suspected the passenger, so they inspected his luggage and found books that contained spells, mostly in unknown languages, and some suspicious tools which seem to be used for black magic,” said Colonel Rashid Bursheed, the head of the organized crime section at the Criminal Investigations Department.

It might be nice to live in a country where the chief threat in airports comes from the Wizard of Oz, rather than a fellow named Mohammed with incendiary underwear, but unfortunately that would require the United States to switch to operating under Islamic law. But in the meantime, Colonel Rashid Bursheed has asked all citizens to report anyone casting spells to the authorities.

In Qatar, home of Al-Jazeera, the police are also on the lookout for rogue magicians. The same goes for Oman, where dedicated enforcers keep watch for magic amulets, bones or love potions. While the police forces of the Muslim world are not terribly good at combating terrorism, they spring into action when someone claims that a witch cast a spell on his goats. Most of those arrested are usually foreigners; many of them are Africans, which is not surprising in the racist tribal heartland of Islam.

What happens to Harry Potter when he’s caught depends on how Islamic the country is. The more committed a country is to Sharia law, the more likely it is that poor Harry will spend years in prison or even lose his head. A magic potion that might only be punishable by seven years in a dungeon in a liberal place like Dubai might make a man lose his head in properly Islamic Saudi Arabia.

In Washington D.C., witch hunts end with a banging gavel marking the end of a committee meeting. In Saudi Arabia, they end at the point of a sword. Just ask Ali Hussain Sibat, a Lebanese TV psychic, who predicted the future and offered magic potions on the side, who was charged with witchcraft when he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and is awaiting his own turn for the mercy of the executioner’s sword.

In response to the Sibat case, the Boston Globe called it a “A 21st-century witch trial” and “a reminder of why this nation’s Founders sought to separate religious and secular laws.” And yet despite that, the Globe and other liberal newspapers ridicule any attempt at restricting the spread of Islamic Sharia law and investigating Islam as a “witch hunt.” Yet in a terrible irony, investigating Islam may be the only way to prevent actual witch hunts from one day taking place in this country.